What is it there for? It's pointing back to what Paul has been saying up to this point as the basis for what he's about to say. The therefore, in this instance, is pointing back to all that Paul has said from beginning in chapter 1 up to this point. And now he is moving forward, as we next time we pick up on Colossians, he'll be moving forward to addressing the false teaching that the Colossians are in danger of. And so he's opening up this section saying everything that he's been saying up to this point is for the purpose of us believers continuing to walk in Christ, that is, to live our lives, to conduct ourselves in the same manner in which we have received Christ Jesus, the Lord. Now, if you'll remember, if you know the book of Colossians, Paul has established very strongly for us, with much beautiful language, the glory of Jesus Christ, right? He has established a very high view of Jesus Christ so that we would know that He is the one who not only saves us from our old life, you know, forgives us of our sins, but is the one in whom we are sanctified, in whom we are cleansed, in whom we walk. And Paul knows that by establishing a high view of Jesus Christ, by making sure that our understanding of who Christ is, by making sure that our doctrine of Jesus Christ, our understanding of His person and His work, will be a vaccination for us against false teaching. against being driven about by every wind of doctrine and wave, as he says in Ephesians. It is a means by which we are protected against any lie that would come from the evil one or any kind of false teacher or any kind of misunderstanding that would not have Jesus Christ as the center. That would promise you fulfillment, satisfaction, holiness, through some other means than holding fast to Christ. Paul has shown us that Jesus Christ and His gospel is the power of God for salvation. That it's the word of truth about Christ and that it's bearing fruit in all the world. Remember this in the beginning of chapter 1. And it's by faith that we, God's people, have received this truth, this testimony of Jesus Christ, which has transformed us. And it's this truth that has brought us out of our old life and into the new life, which is in Christ. Out of the darkness and into the light. Out of the dominion of the evil one and into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. It's the gospel that has been preached, that we have believed in, that has brought us to believe that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. That He is the firstborn of all creation, for by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. You believe this, right, saints? You believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He is the image of the invisible God, that it's through Christ that we know God, and that this very Christ is the one who has created everything that exists. There's no one more powerful, more magnificent than Jesus Christ. And not only is He the over-creation, the head of creation, He is the head of His church, right? He has first place among His people. He is first to raise from the dead. He is conquered by the blood of His cross. He is reconciling all things, and it's by faith that we have come to trust in this Jesus. and to receive all of his benefits, to be received into the kingdom of God, to be forgiven of sins. And Paul, he continues in his letter and he tells us about how he has been appointed by God. He's an apostle. And it was in order to make this gospel, this truth about Jesus fully known. This mystery, you remember the mystery? Mystery is something hidden that is a decree of God that he has to reveal. And He has revealed it. He has revealed this mystery that was hidden for ages, but is now made known to you, His saints. And that is the truth that before the creation of the world, God has willed to bring your redemption through Jesus Christ. To bring you into His family. To join you to Jesus Christ. Remember, we talked about our union with Christ, right? Our salvation is being joined to the Savior, having Christ as our head, having Him as our representative. And that if we don't have Christ, if we are separated from Christ, then we don't have life. That it's only through knowing Jesus, through having Him as our Lord and our Savior, that we can be saved, that we can receive of his benefits, that we can be forgiven of sin, that his blood can cover us. And now Paul says here, he's going to be pointing the way forward for the what we need to have established that we might be protected against false teaching. And so these two verses this morning are focused to show us that the ground of our sanctification, just as it is on our justification, our being declared right, our being made holy, our being cleansed from sin, is grounded in Jesus Christ. That apart from Him, you can do nothing. Paul would have us live the Christian life under the authority, at all times, under the authority of Jesus Christ. Under His kingship, He is our Master. So the first thing we see here, Paul tells us to conduct ourselves under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Christian, you are to conduct yourself, live your life under the authority of Jesus Christ. Notice how he begins, he says, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord. as you received is significant because Paul uses it in a number of places throughout his letters to refer to the teaching about Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 15, he says this, verses 1-4, Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised, and on the third day in accordance with the Scripture." And in a number of other places we can go, Paul says that The gospel, the message about Jesus is something that we received. Now the Colossians, they received the truth about Christ as it was passed down by the apostles and they received it through a man, Epaphras, right? Remember his name popping up? Paul had never met the Colossian church. He'd never been there. But one of his disciples, Epaphras, was from there and had gone to his home city and preached Christ and a church was established. And so through the passing down of the apostolic teaching, the proclamation of who Jesus is and what he has done, the church had come to believe and trust in and receive Jesus Christ. And what they received, Paul calls in the book of Colossians by a number of different names. He calls it the gospel, he calls it the word of the truth, he calls it the faith, he calls it the word of God, and he calls it God's mystery. And Paul has made it very clear to us that the content of this message, the content of the gospel, the word of truth, the mystery, is Christ himself. It is the proclamation of his person and his work, who he is and what he has done. And this teaching has been passed down, not just from Epaphras to the Colossians, but through the ages to us. And we have received the testimony because God has preserved this teaching in the written word of God, right? And so we have Colossians, which is inspired by the Holy Spirit, is God's true word as a testimony of who Jesus is. Now, do you trust in the Word of God, Saint? Do you believe that the Scripture is the inspired, that is the spoken, the Word of God? Okay, if it's God's Word, then it has authority over your life, right? because God is in charge, and God has authority over your life. And moreover, Christ has authority over your life. He is your King. You have submitted your life to Jesus, and this Word is His testimony. Okay, so, this is God's Word. It is our authority, and it's true. It's a true Word. You can trust this Word because it is from God, And you can also trust that the Holy Spirit, who inspired this very Word, continues to speak through this same Word. It is the living Word, because the Holy Spirit, who inspired the Scriptures, who carried men along by the Holy Spirit, Peter says, that's how the Scriptures were written, that the same Holy Spirit, who is God, who has the same authority of the Father and the Son, illuminates the Scripture. Enlightens it to our minds as we have come to Christ and we have received the deposit the the seal of the Holy Spirit the one of the works of the Spirit of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to Continually apply and speak the Word of God into our hearts, right? Okay, so when you became a Christian you received the testimony of the apostles which is preserved in the word of God by the Holy Spirit and spoken of to you still by the Holy Spirit, the truth of who Jesus is. And so when Paul tells us in Colossians chapter 1, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus is the eternal Son of God and that He is the head of all things, that He is first in creation and first in His church, you can believe it and trust it and know it's true, right? And you received it as true. When you came to Christ, you came by faith, right? And you came and you received, he said, Christ Jesus, the Lord. Now, it's very easy for us to think of the word of Christ as being Jesus' either first name or last name, right? But it's actually a title. It means he is the Messiah. Quite literally, we could say, you have received the Christ, Jesus, the Lord. And the Christ is a term referring to the Messiah. It's another way of saying Messiah. The promised one, the anointed one, the one whom God's people look to, waiting for, to bring about salvation. Now, you received the testimony about Jesus, and one of the things we received when we received Jesus is that He is the Christ. that He is the Savior, that He came to save His people from His sins. That's what the angel told Mary, right? He came as a Son of David, the Anointed One, that's what Messiah means. He came as a Son of David, the Son of God came as the Son of David, the Anointed One, to be the Christ, to bring redemption, to bring about the forgiveness of sins. And so, when you received Jesus, you received Him as the Christ, as the one who brings the salvation of your soul, of His people, of the church. You received Him as the Promised One, the mystery hidden for ages, but now revealed to you, to know God in His fullness, and to know that in Him you have the forgiveness of sins, that you have the completed work of Christ. Not just the sins that you had committed up to the time you believed, but the sins you've committed since being a believer and that you'll commit this week and the rest of your life, though you don't have to, as Brother Jerry pointed out to us this morning, because we have the freedom in the Spirit to not sin, But we know we do sin, and you can confidently say, have you not received this truth, and you need a daily walk in it, that Jesus is the Christ who has brought a full forgiveness of your sin. And that it's in Him that you are reconciled to God. Not only did we receive Him as the Christ, but we received Him as the Lord, the Sovereign. We received Him as the King. And Lord is the word that was used by the early church to refer, or the Jews of the first century to refer to Yahweh, to refer to God in the Old Testament. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, that's the word they used, to translate God's name. And so it's pretty significant when this word, Lord, this title is used of Jesus because it affirms His deity. It affirms that He holds the authority of God Himself. That He is the Lord. He is the Creator Lord. He is Israel's Lord. He is our King. and He has the authority of God Himself. And we, when we received Christ, we didn't just receive Him as the Savior who brings forgiveness of sins, but we submitted ourselves to His Lordship, right? We submitted ourselves to the fact that He is King, and that now He has complete authority over my life. When you came to Christ, you renounced your old life, and you came to follow Jesus. To live under His authority. Trusting in Christ means to trust in nothing else and only Him, right? To know that our only hope is in Him, and it means turning away from the old life and following Jesus. What did Jesus tell the rich young ruler who came to Him? He asked him what the law he was supposed to keep and Jesus told him, he said, I've kept all of that. He said, one thing you lack, sell all that you have and follow me. Now, was Jesus saying that the way of salvation was through some kind of work that he had to do? He was saying, no, he told him to follow me. He said, turn away, get rid of your old life and follow me. Repentance and faith. Turn all those things that you're holding on to that you would rather have than submitting to my lordship. Give those things away and follow me. This is what it means to follow Jesus. And if you have been marked by Christ, if you have received the testimony of Jesus, if you are a Christian, then your life is marked by this truth, is it not? That not only have you received the forgiveness of sins with joy, but now your life has gone in a new direction. It has gone in the direction of following Jesus as your master. Just as Jesus went to the disciples and told them to follow me and they left everything and followed him. That's what the Christian life is, right? It's leaving everything to follow Jesus. It sounds so radical that Jesus says it looks like hating your own family and even your own life because you love Jesus more than all things. So, just as you received Christ Jesus, Jesus as the Christ and the Lord, Paul tells us now, so walk in Him. So conduct yourself. Walking is a metaphor we use for conducting ourselves, how we live our life. So walk in Him. So conduct yourself in Him. So you received Him as the Lord, when you first believed, now as you walk, as you conduct yourself as a Christian, live your life under the authority of Jesus Christ. I like how the CSB puts it. It translates this passage this way, So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him. continue on living in Him in the same way that you received Him. So we received the truth of Jesus, and we have submitted ourselves to Him. We have received by faith the forgiveness of sins, and by faith we trust Him as our King. And so now, as you walk the Christian life, you are to live continually, regularly, under the authority of Jesus Christ. He has purchased you by His own blood, and so you belong to Him. Do you view your life that way? Do you view your life as your own, or do you view it as belonging to Jesus Christ? Just as we received Jesus by faith and repented of our sins, so we continue to walk in Him. Faith and repentance, as I've said many times, always goes hand in hand, right? Repentance is the one side and faith is what the other side looks. So it's two sides of the same coin. You're turning away from the old life and trusting by faith in Christ. That's what faith is. It includes repentance. And not only do we start the Christian life with faith and repentance, we continue the Christian life in faith and repentance. In fact, I think it could be said that the Christian life is a life of faith and repentance. It's a life daily lived of turning away from that old life and walking by faith in the Savior. Walking by faith, conducting ourselves under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Under His authority. That means our values, our thoughts, our actions, all that we do in our life is to be guided under Christ. All that we do is to be for His glory, for His honor, for His namesake. The decisions that you make in how you raise your children, where you work, how you conduct yourself in your marriage, how you interact with one another as believers is all under the authority of Jesus Christ. Do you believe that? I like how John Kelvin put it. He says, we are not our own. Let not our reason nor our will therefore sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own. Let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own. In so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we belong to God. Let us therefore live for Him and die for Him. We belong to God. Let His wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We belong to God. Let all the parts of our life accordingly strive towards Him as our only lawful goal. What else do we have to live for, saints, than the glory of Jesus Christ? What else do we have? What we sang earlier, all glory be to Christ. It doesn't matter what legacy we leave if we haven't brought glory to Jesus Christ. All creation was created for the glory of Jesus Christ. You were created for the glory of Jesus Christ. You were redeemed for the glory of Jesus Christ. So do you live your life for the glory of Jesus Christ? And the only way you can live your life to the glory of Jesus Christ is to live under His authority as your master. To conduct yourself in every area of your life in obedience to Him, in obedience to His Word. Now the good news about this is that our King is a good King. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. We think going our own way and doing as we please and the way we want to conduct ourselves and the way, the choices we want to make for our own lives, which is what you are indoctrinated with every day in this culture. We think that will bring us what we've been looking for, our fulfillment, our satisfaction. But only by following the Lordship of Christ, following our Master, will we ever find what satisfies our soul. Can you agree that if He created everything, that He knows how it works best? If He created our lives and He has ordained all things, then He knows what is best for His glory and our good. You will never, ever, ever be disappointed because you obeyed God's word. You will never be disappointed for following Jesus Christ. You will never be let down following your Savior. You may lose things in this life. You may have to sacrifice, but the reward is far greater. You will never. The world will promise you. The media will promise you. The gurus who claim to have all the truth, but don't submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ will never lead you to satisfaction if they're not leading you to submit to the lordship of Christ and to obey his word. You know, you think of, we would learn this by now, you know, silly things like margarine's good for you, no, it's bad for you, no, it's good for you, no, it's bad for you. Like the world has any idea what it's talking about half the time. You will never be disappointed following Jesus Christ. Men err, Jesus never errs. So, we'll go over these quickly, but Paul gives us four means that We are to conduct ourselves under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. How we continue walking in Him, living in Him as we came, as we received Him. The first thing he tells us is that, Christian, you are to remain rooted in Christ. You are to remain rooted in Him. I like how the NASB captures the nuance here. It says, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him. The word here, rooted, the type of verb that's used, carries the connotation of something that was accomplished in the past, but has ongoing implications. So, you have been firmly rooted in Christ, if you have believed, if you have received the testimony, if the Holy Spirit has done that work and grafted you into Jesus, you have been rooted in Him. We read the passage this morning from John 15, and Jesus tells us that unless we remain in Him, we will be cast off as a dead branch and wither. The Holy Spirit has done a work of grafting us as a branch into the vine. Now, there are some branches, Jesus says, that appear to be attached to the vine. Those who can be in the church and can maybe have somewhat of an appearance of godliness, but they are not truly attached to the vine. They have no life in them. And the way you know they have no life in them is there is no fruit. And Jesus says, any branch in me that does not bear fruit will be plucked off and cast into the fire. That's a pretty powerful metaphor, isn't it? You will be cast off from Jesus. But those who have been truly grafted into the vine, who received their life from the vine, which is Jesus, bears fruit, right? And when you received Christ and you were rooted in Him, it has borne fruit. says the parable of the sower that Jesus tells. Now some bear fruit, appear to sprout up, but then show over time that they don't have fruit and that they were never really, they didn't have a deep root in the vine. They didn't have a deep connection to the vine. They weren't truly connected to the vine. But where the seed falls on good soil, that tree bears much fruit, right? And so we have been rooted in Christ, we received Him, and we have been rooted in Him, and we must remain rooted in Him. In John 15, verse 4, Jesus said, "...remain in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you unless you remain in Me." I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing." Now do you understand that unless you remain rooted in Christ, you can do nothing? The only way you will bear fruit in keeping repentance, the only way that you will bear the fruit of sanctification, the only way you're going to grow in holiness, the only way you're going to grow more into the image of Jesus Christ, is as you remain rooted in Jesus. As you continue to conduct yourself in Him, rooted in Him. We must continue to live in Christ, just as we came to Him, just as we were engrafted in Him, we must continue with Him. That means sanctification, our growing in godliness, does not come apart from our relationship with Jesus Christ. It means that just be, you know, we come to Christ and we're forgiven of sins, we do not then grow in our godliness, grow into conformity of Jesus by some other means than continuing to trust in Christ and obey Him by faith. Right? Now, this will be important later in Colossians because one of the things, one of the false teachings that is being promoted there is that the way that you become more godly is through various means. Either it's through special visions and stuff, but some of it is by treating yourself harshly, by a form of legalism, by regulating things. And this is how you'll grow in godliness. And Paul is striking at the root here. He's telling us that you can do all that. You can try to set up all the boundaries. You can try to control your life, but unless you remain rooted in Jesus, there is no fruit that will be born from that. How do you remain rooted in Christ? Well, one, Daily live by faith in the finished work of Christ. Daily live by faith in His work. That in Him, you have the forgiveness of sins. That in Him, you have the power to overcome sin because He has conquered it. He has laid it bare. He has taken away its power. So, daily, Remain rooted in Him by walking by faith in Christ, knowing that apart from Him, you have nothing. Daily submit yourself to the authority of Jesus Christ. Remember that you are not your own. Figure out ways to remind yourself of this when you begin your day in prayer. Make it a prayer of yours, from your heart, that today, Lord, I want to live for the glory of Jesus Christ under your authority. Show me how I can obey you today. And this doesn't just mean not doing the things that you know you're not supposed to do. It also means doing the things that God has called you to do. It means, husbands, washing your wives in the water of the Word. This means disciplining and caring for your children and raising them up in the ways of the Lord. It means honoring Christ in your work. It means growing in Christ every day as we submit to His authority and looking for where He would have us obey Him. It would look like the obedience of proclaiming the gospel as the Lord brings someone into your life and your work or your neighborhood who needs Jesus. The obedience of faith there is to tell them the truth of Christ. We must not only think of sin as the things that we're not supposed to do, but not doing the things we are supposed to do as well. Not just sins of commission, but sins of omission. Second thing Paul tells us is that we are being built up in him. So we are to continue walking in Him, being rooted and being built up in Him. Now these are passive verbs, meaning that we are not the active agent in this, God is. God is the one who is doing the rooting and the one who is doing the building. But we have a responsibility to hold fast to Christ and to seek to be built up by Him. This means that our lives, here when he uses this image of being built, are being built upon Christ as our foundation. And that if we build upon any other foundation, if our life, the fruit that we bear, the way that we conduct ourselves is built upon anything else other than the foundation of Jesus Christ, then All that we do is doomed. Think of a beautiful mansion, just this wonderful house, but if it's built on a sand foundation, if it's built on something that is not firm and solid, that beautiful mansion is doomed to die. Moralism, which is just trying to, you know, is doing good, apart from Jesus Christ, is building a mansion. on sand, and that building will crumble. You know, sometimes we wonder why someone who appeared to be a good Christian, and they were walking, and we thought they were doing great, and all of a sudden, they just throw everything away, and they choose a life of sin, and they do something. I mean, we've all seen this, right? They were building on a foundation that wasn't solid. They were being built up on something else other than Christ. They were seeking to build the outward walls to appear good. But Christ wasn't the foundation. You need to remain in Christ and you need to be built up on Him. As the hymn says, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. So we must seek to ensure that as we are being built up in Christ, that as we're growing in the knowledge of Jesus, as we're seeking to do what is right, that we're doing that for the glory of Christ, that we're doing that in submission to His Lordship, that we're doing that knowing that it is only through His work that we have the forgiveness of sins. It's important to note as well that these two metaphors, rooted, which is like an agricultural metaphor of planting something and being built up as a construction metaphor, building something, are used together elsewhere by Paul to refer to the temple, the church. the new temple that is being built up in Christ. He talks about that in Ephesians 2. And so I think it's important for us to note here that in Paul's understanding, and what I think is behind the language here, is for us to understand that our sanctification is not only an individual thing. but that we are built up, we are sanctified together as the body of Christ. That the body is being built up in love, that as Christ is building up His church, as He has given gifts to His church, He's given the apostles and the prophets who established the church, He's given shepherds and teachers and evangelists to build up the church, continuing through the ages. And the ministry of the shepherds and teachers, of your elders, is to equip you for ministry, is to equip you so that the body of Christ, all of you, would be together, being joined together in love, being joined together by Christ, would be building up this spiritual temple that God is doing. He's doing this work among us, but together we are being built up into a spiritual household, he says. We are being built up into the temple of God. We're growing into a holy temple. And this is happening together as the body builds itself up in love. And so that means that you are integral in the sanctification of your brother and sister. We must not have a view of sanctification that is private, right? Our sanctification is personal, right? Each of us need to be sanctified. We have sins that we are being cleansed of. But it's not private in the sense that it's only for us to do by ourselves and on our own. We grow together. The body grows together. And when there's sin in the body, guess what? It affects the whole body. Because we are joined together. We have the same spirit and we are covenanted together. And so when there is sin, it hurts the whole body. And so you must understand that when you walk in sin, when you walk in unrepentance, that it doesn't just affect you. It's like toxic waste that's been dumped into a lake. It infects the whole lake. And so we must seek that together we are remaining rooted in Christ and being built up in Him. And we must rely on the work of the Holy Spirit for this. Because God is the one who must build the house. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, labor in vain. This is one of the, what would a good word for this be? I don't know, paradox that we see. in the scriptures is that God is the one who must do the building and we are responsible to make sure that we do what God requires of us. Part of that fulfilling what God requires of us is submitting to his lordship and knowing that he has to provide the strength with which we build. Right? Paul's already said this in Colossians. We preached this a long time ago. But where he prays, and he talks about how he operates, he strives with the strength that God provides him. That's how we are to be. That's how we remain in Christ. We need to continue in him, being rooted in Christ, and now being built up in him. is he gives us the strength to be growing into the spiritual household. And he says, established in the faith just as you were taught. We were established in the faith because we received as true the testimony of the Scriptures. We received as true what has been passed down to us. Now, in order for you to be established, you must Be taught just as you were taught. The way that the gospel continues to bear fruit in the world is because it's continuing to be taught, right? How will they believe if someone doesn't go and preach? If someone doesn't proclaim the gospel of peace, come with the shoes of the gospel, with the gospel of peace proclaiming Christ, how will anyone believe? Okay, well, we were called not to just go out and proclaim the message and go on our merry way. We were called to go and make disciples, right? Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to do all that I have commanded, all that I have said. Okay, so this is what the church is all about. The reason God has given us a church, a church family, he has established the church as one of the spheres of authority in the world. So you have the state, the family, and the church, right? The role of the church is to proclaim the gospel and to nurture God's people. the church has been given to us, we can think of it as our mother, who we are nurtured at her breast, we are cared for by her, we are taught by her. And the church is only a true church insofar as it is proclaiming the scripture that God has given. That it is only a true church as long as we are proclaiming the truth of God's word. and doing what He has commanded. Without the Word of God, there is no true church. It's only a country club. It's only a club getting together to enjoy time of talking. Unless we're founded upon the authority of Christ and His Word, we cannot be a true church. And so, We need to ensure, as the way we continue to walk in Christ as we received Him, is to ensure that we're established in the faith just as we were taught. This means that we hold fast to the Word of God. We read it. We study it. We memorize it. It means we don't just do this by ourselves. We seek to be taught by faithful men whose lives are evidence of their commitment to the Word of God and their living in accordance with all that Jesus has taught. And we are to seek to be taught by those who correctly handle the Word of Truth. From the earliest days of the church, God has commissioned that he would minister to us through men. I love how... I know I probably quote Calvin too much to you guys, I'm sorry. I'll try to find some other people to quote as well. But anyways, I love what Calvin said because... We need to understand this. God has willed to minister to us through men. He could have sent angels. He could have sent angels to teach you. He could have sent angels without sin to lead you. But He has not willed to lead us in that way. He has willed to lead us through men to keep us humble. He has willed to lead us through men so that we would depend upon the Holy Spirit. He's willed to lead us through men so that we would know that Christ gets all the glory. Now, your pastors, your elders, we're sinners. We sin, okay? We sin. We sin against you. We err. We're men. But God has called us to care for you, to teach you. willfully submit yourself to the teaching of God's word through the men that he has appointed. And it's not just through the men who are appointed. You need to be teaching one another, encouraging one another. You need to be, he says it later in Colossians 3, each one to be giving a hymn and a psalm and a spiritual song and speaking a fitting word to one another. We need to be established in the faith. We need to be active in the ministry of the body. Saints, we need to not neglect the gathering together with one another. We need to seek one another out, not just on Sunday service, not just for Wednesday prayer, which we need that as well, in our small groups, in our homes. We need to be fellowshipping with one another, encouraging one another. We need to seek to show hospitality. We need to grow in this. We need to grow in hospitality. It is lacking among us, and I will be the first to admit it's been lacking for my own self. We need to seek to show hospitality to one another, to bring one another into each other's homes, and to get into each other's lives and build one another up with the Word. We'll close with the last point. And he says, abounding in thanksgiving. A Christian's life ought to be characterized by thanksgiving. There is nothing more of an oxymoron than an heir of the kingdom of heaven walking around discontent, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. Nothing is opposite of what we have received. We all have the treasures of the wisdom and the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. You have the source of all joy and satisfaction. You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places and you in wait the inheritance of eternity with the one who your soul loves. the inheritance of the new heavens and the new earth. We have so much to be thankful for, saints. We have received from Christ every blessing that we could ever hope for, more than we even deserve on our best day. We have so much to be thankful for. And I don't think it'd be a stretch to say that every single person here, when you came to Christ, you came with thanksgiving. When you realize the weight of your sin and your need of the Savior, and you saw the finished work of Christ that was offered to you and you received it by faith, you were thankful. You were so overwhelmed with thanks that tears filled your eyes just as you received Him. So walk in Him. So walk in that thanksgiving. Don't forget. the Savior of your soul. Don't forget the price that was paid. Don't forget the benefits that have been given to you. Now, I understand tragedies happen. We have bad days and evil is done and we dwell among the wicked and perverse generation. I understand. But our thankfulness is not in those things. It's in the midst of those things. Our thankfulness is because we're looking to what is unseen and not to just what we see. We live as a thankful people because our Lord and Savior is Jesus Christ. And He is redeeming all things and making all things new. And He's redeemed us. And so we live a life of gratitude. We abound in it. I love how he adds that word there. Abounding in thanksgiving. It should be pouring over. We should be known as a thankful people. And we often aren't a thankful people. We should be thankful. We should be known in our homes. We should be known in our work. We should be known to all that know us as those who are thankful, who have gratitude, and who live with that joy that comes from thankfulness. abound in thanksgiving saints. And when you walk in these four things, these four ways, these means, you will be bearing fruit and growing into the fullness of Christ. And as next time we can get in Colossians together, we will look at how having this foundation, having this understanding of Christ established can now give us the strength, the wisdom to be able to have discernment, to be able to have discernment to know what will lead us to glorify Christ and those things which distract from his centrality, those things which promise fulfillment that just won't. I love all of you. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your son, Jesus Christ. We ask that you would give us the strength as your people to conduct ourselves under the lordship of Jesus Christ. We ask that you would be with us, that this week as we live before you, that we would live before you just as we received you. that we would remain rooted in Christ, that we would be built up in Him, that we would be established in the faith, and that we would be abounding in thanksgiving. Give us your strength to do this. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.